The widespread deployment of computer systems in medical practices has encouraged healthcare providers to transition conventional paper-based patient medical records to electronic health records (EHRs—also called electronic medical records, or EMRs) and to communicate medical billing information to payers electronically. To facilitate the management of EMRs and/or medical billing, some medical practices contract with third-party providers of a practice management system. The practice management system may include a web-based interface that enables users at the medical practice to input, view, and interact with stored health information for patients of the medical practice.
Many communications between service providers in the healthcare industry including pharmacies, laboratories, medical practices, and payers such as insurance companies, are transmitted using paper-based techniques such as mail or facsimile. For medical practices that use EMRs to store patient health information, a user often is required to review the received documents and manually enter health information in the received documents into an associated patient's EMR.